Say What? April 9, 2012 Edition. [Reader Post]

President Obama, on what will happen if the Ryan budget is passed: “We wouldn’t have the capacity to enforce the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food that we eat. Cuts to the FAA would likely result in more flight cancellations, delays and the complete elimination of air traffic control services in parts of the country. Over time, our weather forecasts would become less accurate because we wouldn’t be able to afford to launch new satellites and that means governors and mayors would have to wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a hurricane. That’s just a partial sampling of the consequences of this budget.”

President Barack Obama: “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” Nearly every word of that is untrue.

President Obama: “We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress, on a economic issue, like healthcare – like I think most people would clearly consider commerce – a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner [vs New York, 1905].”

Press Secretary Jay Carney: First of all, the president was asked a question and then responded to it. Secondly, as I just said, he made an observation about why he believes that – well, first of all, he believes the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Why he believes it is constitutional and why he believes that the Supreme Court will, in keeping with 80+ years of judicial precedent and Supreme Court precedent, will defer to Congress on its authority to pass regulation on issues of national economic importance like our healthcare system. It’s the reverse of intimidation. He’s simply making an observation about precedent and the fact that he expects the Court to adhere to that precedent.

Press Secretary Jay Carney: “What I acknowledged yesterday is that speaking on Monday the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.” Translation: “You are not smart enough to understand the President; he is a law professor and you’re not.”

President Obama: “My entire career has been a testimony of American exceptionalism.”

President Obama: “I hear politicians talking about values in an election year. I hear a lot about that. Let me tell you about values. Hard work, personal responsibility – those are values. But looking out for one another. That’s a value. The idea that we’re all in this together. I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s a value.” Insofar as we know, President Obama has never given dime one to his half brother in Kenya, whom he has met.

President Obama: “We didn’t simply work that hard in 2008 just to clean up the mess that had been left…And we have been spending the last three years cleaning after some of that mess. And I don’t want to have to do it again.”

President Obama: “[Ronald Reagan] could not get through a Republican primary today.” And yet, nearly every Republican candidate speaks of his affection for President Reagan.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: “There is no economic or financial case for using the fear of future deficits to cut as deeply into core functions of the government, to weaken the safety net or fundamentally alter Medicare benefits as do the Republican proposals.” Let’s just keep spending money.

President Obama on the Ryan budget: “It’s a Trojan horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it’s really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It’s nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism.”

President Obama: “[Republicans have] one message and that is, we’re going to make sure that we cut people’s taxes even more – so that by every objective measure our deficit is worse and we will slash government investments that have made this country great.”

DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “President Obama rightly is making sure that the American people understand that there is a dramatic difference in the two visions they will have to choose from in this country come November. And that is a vision that he has laid out and is moving us toward to make sure that everyone in America has a fair shot, that everybody gets a fair shake and everybody play business the same set of rules. And the middle class and working class families have a chance of success, and it’s not just wealthy people and the most fortunate who can have the wind at their backs. That’s what Mitt Romney is about and this is a dramatic contrast. And i n addition to that the unbelievable budget cuts and cutting our way to deficit reduction that really is not a path to prosperity, it’s a path to poverty, is something that the American people need to know.”

President Barack Obama: “I don’t need to tell anyone here that progress is hard, change can come slow, opportunity and equality don’t come without a fight. Sometimes you have to keep fighting even after you won some victories. Things don’t always move forward, sometimes they move backward if you’re not fighting for ’em.”

DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “I think Mitt Romney has been so focused on trying to out-right-wing and embrace extremism that he is really beholden and has tied himself to his support for personhood amendments, his belief that Roe versus Wade was one of the worst decisions handed down by the Supreme Court, his support for the Blunt-Rubio amendment which says that bosses get to decide for their female employees what kind of access to health care they can have. And so every day there’s another example of how out of touch the Republicans are.”

President Obama: “When people say we should get rid of Planned Parenthood, they’re not just talking about restricting a woman’s ability to make her health decisions. They’re talking about denying, as a practical matter, the preventive care, like mammograms, that millions of women rely on.” Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms; it writes referrals for the patient to have them done elsewhere.

Vice President Joe Biden to a hosted law enforcement and first responders event, and how reducing spending will bite the 1% in the butt: “The first guy who’s going to have a problem is the guy whose $3 million home is on fire and you can’t get a truck out there. The first guy that’s going to have a problem is the person who has real assets and finds their house burglarized or robbed, or their Porsche is stolen.”

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin: “[the link between carbon-sparked global warming and severe weather] has been proven. It’s been proven time and time again, and the science is clear. Tell me (recent weather outbreaks) are a coincidence. I don’t believe it…[buying hybrid cars may be costly, but] it’s your money or your life. The warming climate is changing our weather patterns. We’re experiencing more severe events.”

Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen: “The situation we’re creating for young people and future generations is that we’re handing them a climate system which is potentially out of their control. We’re in an emergency: you can see what’s on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction.”

Joe Biden on the GOP: “They’re emasculating all the efforts to deal with renewable energy.”

Former Green Jobs czar Van Jones: “Republicans tried to make the word Solyndra this kind of horrible world and like `Oh my God’ . it’s still fine for them to do this war on American technology…This is quasi-treasonous from my point of view. How can you let American industry be wiped out?”

President Obama: “Families were enticed, and sometimes just plain tricked, into buying homes they couldn’t afford. Huge, reckless bets were made with other people’s money on the line.” Perhaps the president has heard of Solyndra or Solar One or any other of the many “green” companies which got loads of taxpayer money before going broke.

Nancy Pelosi: “And we had 40% approval for the Congress. ” For a brief period of time, Congress had a 39% approval rate under Pelosi’s leadership. It was quite a bit below that for most of her speakership. She personally had a 24% approval rating.

Nancy Pelosi of Obamacare: “I think that it is the crown jewel. It is the greatest achievement; but with stiff competition.” Because President Obama accomplished so much.

Van Jones on libertarians: “They say they’re Patriots but they hate everybody in America who looks like us. They say they love America but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings, ya know ya’ll.”

President Obama’s Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis: “[Dolores Huerth is] my teacher, my role model, and mi hermana…[she is] a “living legend.” Huerta is a socialist co-founder of the United Farm Workers, an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and has praised Hugo Chavez to high school students.

Young California protestor after being pepper sprayed: “We won! We won! They pepper-sprayed us!”

Jesse Jackson’s Easter message: “But why was He [Jesus] killed? Because He fought and occupied the corrupt temple.”

Van Jones: “[The] Occupy movement pretty much saved the entire country from destruction.”

Left-Wing Terrorist and Obama pal Bill Ayers: “I get up every morning and think…today I’m going to end capitalism.”

Van Jones: “You’ve got the perfect storm building. You’ve got all the passion around Trayvon, and what a horrible injustice that was. And it turns out you can draw a direct line back to the Koch Bros, you can draw a direct line back to to mainstream corporations…” That’s not crazy talk.

First Lady Michelle Obama:”Keep up the great work,” when accepting an anti-war petition at a fundraiser in San Francisco last week from a CodePink member. When CodePink is not collecting signatures, they are going naked and semi-naked in banks or in protest of BP.

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “You know, what Mitt Romney and the Republicans have been doing to themselves every single day is showing women in this country day after day that they are callously indifferent to women’s health, to the priorities of women.”

Nina Turner (Ohio congresswoman): “…it really is unfortunate that we have occupiers of state houses and general assemblies these days that all they care about is prohibiting women and their rights to high-quality health care, reproductive care.”

It’s all about race:

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “[Republicans] happy for him [Obama] to have been involved in using his labor to build the White House, but for him to win an election and live in the White House, that’s just not acceptable.”

Professor Michael Eric Dyson: “I think these are code words; wolf whistles, dog whistles. If you can’t accept Barack Obama in the presidency as an intelligent, articulate African American man going about trying to negotiate between competing claims and rival arguments about what is right and wrong, than you can’t accept anybody.”

Congressional Black Caucus resolution: “[George Zimmerman‘s] unfounded assumptions and racial bias led to the use of deadly force.”

New Black Panther poster: “No School, No Work, No Shopping. . . Demand the Arrest of George Zimmerman.” Zimmerman’s face in the poster is overlaid by crosshairs. That’s not crazy.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, about Trayvon Martin being suspended from school the day he was killed: “We must stop suspending our children. Invest in them. Educate them.” Martin had a baggie with marijuana residue in it and was suspended for that.

Black Juvenile to his 5 Black juvenile friends, as they approach 78-year-old white Dallas Watts, as he walked home from the store: “Take him down.”

Another of the youths: “Kill him.”

While Mr. Watts was down the boys kicked him, shouting, “[Get] that white [man]. This is for Trayvon. . . Trayvon lives, white [man]. Kill that white [man].”

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New Black Panther Party Malik Zulu Shabazz: “Our belief teaches us that we obey man’s law, but wen there’s a conflict between man’s law and God’s law, we are duty bound to follow the law of God. And God says that justice must be done. And so we received a revelation, those that work in that particular department in the party received a revelation to work with the community there, and they came together with a $10,000 reward offer for a legal citizen’s arrest. Some are calling it a bounty.”

The Compliant Obama Press Corps:

President Obama to the American Society of News Editors, in case they are not getting their stories straight: “As all of you are doing your reporting, I think that its important to remember that the positions that I am taking on the budget and a host of other issues if we had had this discussion 20 years ago or even 15 years ago, they would have been considered as squarely centrist positions. What’s changed is the center of the Republican party.” What could be more centrist than a $1.3 trillion deficit year after year? What is the tax and spend party, once again?

AP president Dean Singleton: “President Obama made history as the first minority to be elected President. Even many who opposed his election felt proud of our country as he took the oath of office. As President, he inherited the headwinds of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. He pushed through Congress the biggest economic recovery plan in history and led a government reorganization of two of the big three auto manufacturers to save them from oblivion. He pursued domestic and foreign policy agendas that were controversial to many, highlighted by his signature into law of the most comprehensive health care legislation in history. And the budget plans proposed by the President, on the one hand, and Republicans on the other hand, aren’t even on the same planet. Many Democrats believe that his agenda doesn’t go far enough and most Republicans believe it goes way too far. While we thought the 2008 White House race was rough and tumble, the 2012 race makes it look like bumper cars by comparison. Our country has become more polarized. The one percent and the 99 percent are at each others’ throats.”

Nina Totenberg, NPR: “And if you look at, if you look at the taxes paid today in brackets of about 20 thousand, you see that actually the people who pay the most are between $60,000 and $125,000. And then, and they pay about 30 percent in income, taxes across the board. It then starts to go down for people who make more than that. And, and this proposed budget would give all of the benies so to speaked to unearned income. Salaried people would be paying more and more, and unearned, and people who made a lot of money would be paying less and less.” Truth is not important to those who give us the news. She is either ignorant or she willfully misrepresents the facts.

AP headline after disappointing March jobs report: “US job market takes a break after hiring binge” In almost every economic story featuring the President, there is a happy face put on the story.

Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer: “Despite the pullback in March, the economy has added 858,000 jobs since December—the best four months of hiring in two years.” Which is false.

CNBC guest, economist Mark Zandi, who has worked with the Obama administration: “The other thing I want to point out, and you know, I’m trying to find some silver linings in the data. It’s obviously not positive, but one other silver lining is that you’ll notice that the job losses in state and local government is starting to moderate. And I think that’s a real trend. You know, there are more layoffs coming, but the worst of the layoffs are behind us. And that’s also going to be a significant positive going forward. That’s a big negative, that’s going to be less of a negative.”

Dan Rather, HDNET: “But this will be, let’s don’t forget that race will be a factor in this [2012] presidential campaign. Yes, the country can feel good about we elected a person of color, which I did not expect to see in my lifetime. But race will be a factor in this.”

From Reuters: “NBC News‘s decision to air an edited call from George Zimmerman to police in the moments before he shot Trayvon Martin was ‘a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call,’ according the president of network’s news division”

NY Times’ Thomas Friedman: “”I think it is the fact that in my view the Republican Party is no longer a conservative party. It’s become a radical party on a lot of these key issues. ”

Rich Benjamin on the NY Times Opinion page: “Mr. Zimmerman reacted very differently, taking out his handgun and shooting the youth in cold blood.”

Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten does a humorouscolumn on how is dog is a Republican: “I’ve been living with my dog for five years now, but only recently did I come to accept Murphy’s red-state politics…Like other Republicans, Murphy shows inappropriate interest in the reproductive systems of women she does not know, shamelessly sticking her nose into their business. It can be a problem on walks. But other things are more nuanced. Murphy is a culture warrior. She has a rigid worldview, with exacting standards about what constitutes acceptable personal behavior. When she sees something of which she disapproves, she will glare indignantly at the offender, throw her head back and bay like the hound she is…Like other Republicans, Murphy demands less government; she makes this position abundantly clear anytime I attempt to govern her behavior in any way inconsistent with her immediate desires, such as horking up maggoty chicken from the gutter, which she will do with subversive glee while in a protective crouch”

Michael Miller of the New Times Blog: “Neo-Nazis are currently conducting heavily armed patrols in and around Sanford, Florida and are “prepared” for violence in the case of a race riot.” The Sanford, FL Police Department deny any indication of neo-Nazis patrolling anywhere in Sanford.

Politico’s Dylan Byers and Mackenzie Weingerreport that Gov. Sarah Palin told CBS’ Katie Couric in 2008: “I can see Russia from my house.” Tina Fey said this in an SNL skit. These are political junkies who should have a clue. They have since corrected this.

CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele: “That’s kind of the climate change we are seeing. You know, extremes are kind of ruling the roost and really what we are seeing, more become the norm…global warming is really kind of a misnomer. Global climate change-so the colds are colder and warms are warmer, and the severes more severe.”

Heading in ABC story on global warming: “America’s Prestige Damaged by Its Climate Denialism; World Has `Given Up’ on Hoped-for U.S. Leadership”

AP article this week: “Al-Qaida has been blamed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of people.” 11 years later, they are not quite ready to make that jump to saying that they actually did it.

New York Times‘ recently installed Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren tweeted: “What do #Israel and #Iran have in common? Jailing journalists.” She first defended this tweet, because of an article she linked to; but then backed off.

Rev. Ruth Hawley-Lowry, blogging for the Huffington Post: “This week is Holy Week. So what do Trayvon Martin, Dr. King and Jesus have in common? No, this question isn’t the beginning of a bad joke – the answer is hopefully apparent. They were all killed in the midst of a political climate that justified fear and legalized hate.”

The View’s Joy Behar: “Shouldn’t [Palin] be turning letters somewhere on some game show at this point? Why is she still involved in the conversation politically? …who cares what she thinks about at this point?” Palin’s appearance on the Today Show had a slighter better audience than Katie Couric hosting another show on another network.

Oprah Winfrey: “I’m 100 percent behind our president. I actually love our president, and have the utmost respect for him and that office and what it takes to be there…[but]I will not be out there [campaigning] because I’m trying to fix a network.”

Liberal civility:

Andrew Sullivan:

President Obama: “I believe that it is part of our solemn responsibility to future generations that we look after this planet; that we make sure our air is clean and our water is clean; that we’re not poisoning our kids.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio: “…the Ryan budget would actually cut transportation by 35 percent from current levels. Or the flat-earthers who say there’s no federal interest in a national transportation system. One of those three things is going to come out of their (the Republican) side….We are going to lose half of the proposed projects this construction season around America, tens of thousands of jobs, needed investment because they got a bunch of bozos in their caucus who don’t believe we should have a national transportation system.”

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry: “We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops. They ought to go. I’m going to say that right now. But we need African-American businesspeople to be able to take their places, too.”

Nancy Pelosi: “I say to my Republican friends, and I do have many, `Take back your party, this is the Grand Old Party. Take it back from extremists who are taking it over the edge, anti-government ideologues who really don’t believe in a public space.”

A Virginia elementary school teacher told her students that “Republicans are stupid” and “they don’t care about anyone but wealthy people and businesses.” This is a quote of a quote.

Former White House “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones: “The impact of the Tea Party’s reckless policies would be to financially decimate our government, further dismantle America’s middle class, and strengthen the chokehold that the top 1 percent has on the economy. Nonetheless, the Tea Partiers effectively seized the public narrative in 2009 and congressional power in 2010, quelling the wave of hope generated by the 2008 election.”

Lee Whitnum, of opponent Chris Murphy: “I’m dealing with a whore here who sells his soul to AIPAC, who will say anything for the job.” AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Whitnum and Murphy are both democrats.

Nina Turner (Ohio congresswoman): “…I would ask the women of this nation to use their political power and their passion to clean state houses and governor’s mansions across this country and take out the right-wing occupiers and replace them with elected officials who believe in equality and justice for all.” Of course I know what she meant. The same as I understood what Palin meant when she drew crosshairs on certain congressional districts.

Muslims:

Dr. Omar Ja’ara, lecturer at Al-Najah University in Nablus: “We have a great leader, Saul, [in the Quran] who defeated the nation of giants and killed Goliath. This is a great Muslim victory. The Muslims of the Children of Israel went out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and unfortunately, many researchers deny the Exodus of those oppressed people who were liberated by a great leader, like Moses the Muslim, the believing leader, the great Muslim, who was succeeded by Saul, the leader of these Muslims in liberating Palestine.”

Liberals making sense:

President Obama: “In three years we’ve begun to see what change looks like.”

Current TV statement: “Current seeks a determination that it is no longer obligated to pay a dime to Mr. Olbermann who, having already been paid handsomely for showing up sporadically and utterly failing to keep his end of the bargain, now seeks to be paid tens of millions more for not working at all.”

Liberals being honest:

Van Jones: “I think if he [Obama] came out as gay, he wouldn’t lose the black vote. President Obama is not going to lose the black vote no matter what he does.”

Former White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein: “When I worked for the administration I was very active in the implementation of the Recovery Act. And one thing we found about clean energy was that if you build a solar plant you are going to hire a lot of people. If you run a solar plant, it doesn’t take a ton of people to run some of these plants.”

Moderates/Affiliation Unknown:

Canadian President Stephen Harper: “We cannot be, as a country, in a situation where our one and, in many cases, only energy partner could say no to our energy products. We just cannot be in that position.”

Cheadle follow up tweet: “It was “an error made in the production process that we deeply regret.” Really? “Error?” Anybody out there know anything about editing?” I always liked Cheadle as an actor; I like him a little bit more now.

Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission: “This [shooting of Trarvon Martin] will be vetted in court, not in a mob mentality that’s been juiced up by Al Sharpton, who is a provocateur and a racial ambulance chaser of the first order, and aided and abetted by Jesse Jackson.”

Accounting executive of Keith Olbermann in an email: “The problem is with him . . . the man who professes to be for the 99% doesn’t want any of the 99% talking to him or being near him.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): “It makes no sense to make this attack on women. If you don’t feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters.”

Crosstalk:

MSNBC’s conservative, Joe Scarborough: “I can tell you, Planned Parenthood, in my neighborhood, is not seen as a noble organization.”

Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University Professor and MSNBC Contributor: “Look all of this othering of Obama, like he’s from some other planet. Everything he does is subject to a different lens and seen through a microscope that really tends to pick him apart. I think it’s indivisible from the broader issue of his race, of his being a black man with a certain kind of authority. These are impolite things we don’t want to talk about. We think that they’re being extraordinary ratcheted up. But I don’t see any other way to explain it but a remarkable resistance to the integrity of this man that has no other explanation.”

George Will: “But regardless of his skin pigmentation, what he said was factually, demonstrably false. He said something would be unprecedented that has many precedents, probably thousands since 1803.”

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: “Can I say this — the president is known as an extremely bright man. He was an instructor of constitutional law. For him to say something so deeply incorrect and almost unknowing about the — the purpose of the Supreme Court seemed provocative. At the very least sloppy and what the heck is he doing? But at the most, provocative. A real brush back. A real, I’m going to go to war with the court.”

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Random act of journalism:

Bill Plante, CBS news: What he said on Monday was an obvious misspoken moment because he talked about the court not being in a position to overturn an of Congress –

Jay Carney: Bill –

Plante: You’re standing up there twisting yourself in knots, because he made a mistake and you can’t admit it.

{Ed Henry of FoxNews is sitting right next to Plante; with quite the smile on his face)

Plante: No, I’m just being – I’m just noting that you’re twisting yourself in knots.

Carney: The president spoke in answer to a question, relatively briefly, and in the context of this case, made the statement that there is no judicial precedent – that there is long judicial precedent which would argue that the court should not overturn this law. I totally grant to you that he did not refer to the commerce clause. He did not refer to the whole context. I think he believed that that was understood. Clearly, some folks – notably the person sitting in that chair and others – missed that. And, uh, and, uh – no, no, look. There’s a lot of – it’s kind of ridiculous to believe that the president wasn’t talking about the context of the case, but I completely concede that he did not describe the context when he took the question and answered it on Monday. He then, when asked again Tuesday, provided the full context. And so, did he clarify his comments? Absolutely. Did he expand on them? Absolutely. Yes, Scott. God, you guys. It’s your job to come up with clichés – game on, and things like that. But I’m not going to engage in that.

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CNN Newsroom, anchor Kyra Phillips: “Wait, are you saying that gay marriage is not important?”

Rep. Allen West: “I think if you poll the American people, Kyra, I don’t think they’ll bring up gay marriage as one of the top concerns.”

West went on to speak about a troubled small business.Phillips: “I think no doubt people are concerned about jobs and the economy, but gay marriage is a big issue. You were military. Don’t ask, don’t tell …”

Although West attempting to speak about the economy, Phillips went back to this topic again.

CNN/ORCPoll asked which issue is the most important facing the country today. “Policies toward gays, lesbians” was one of the selections, which were presented in random order. The economy, the federal budget deficit, health care, Afghanistan and illegal immigration topped the results. Only 2% of respondents thought policies toward gays and lesbians were the most important issue. What the news is actually looking to do is find enough wedge issues to make West look bad. It would be as if they asked Obama continual questions about abortion and his abortion votes. Such an approach would alienate some of his supporters, so they never ask him such questions.

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Gordon Peterson, Host: Why does he attack Paul Ryan‘s budget?

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Because the Republicans in Congress are less popular than the Democrats in Congress than the President in the White House. So if you put Mitt Romney, and you want to make this campaign about budget and budget cuts and tax cuts for the best off, the angry affluent if you would. I mean, that’s where Obama wants to fight the campaign, not on the economy itself or unemployment or five million missing jobs. Fight it on the budget and turning Medicaid over to the states and privatizing Medicare.

Nina Totenberg, NPR: Fight it on student loans. He wants to fight it on, you know, an end to student loans.

Peterson: The safety net.

Totenberg: .the safety net, an end to research which has made, scientific research which has made this country great. Those are the things that, you know, you can sound the alarm bells on. And conversely, the Republicans want to make it about the end of the country by fiscal default.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama will win the argument if the electorate is as gullible as Nina and Mark and Evan in accepting what the Administration is saying about the cuts. You just said cutting student loans. Actually, the Ryan budget keeps the level of public Pell grants exactly where it is. What Obama speaks about when he talks about a cut is he wants to keep inflating the amount of spending the government is doing. Today the government spends 25 percent of the economy which is the highest since the Second World War. The average is 20 percent. He’s now at 25 percent. So what he calls a cut means the not increasing of a budget he’s already inflated radically. There are no cuts in student loans.

Bret Baier, FOX News: Democrats put forward a budget that failed in the House, a version of the president’s budget was voted on in the House and Democrats said it was a stunt, but it fell 414-0. Senate Democrats have not passed a budget resolution in 1,070 days. Why?

Jay Carney, White House: Come on, Bret. You can cite, and I know you often do the statistics that represent, you know gimmickry and stunts —

Baier: Wait, what’s gimmickry about not passing a budget in the Senate?

Carney: Look, it is our preference that Congress work and the Senate effectively pass a budget. You know —Baier: So why doesn’t the president call Harry Reid and say, ‘Why don’t we get a budget on the table and vote on it?’Carney: Bret, I know that’s what you want to make the segment about. The president put forward and laid out his budget proposal which has at its core, a balanced approach, a balance to this day that Congressman Ryan rejects. There is a lot of citation on cable and elsewhere about the Simpson-Bowles commission.Baier: Jay, listen, the question is about the Senate Democratic Leadership.Carney: Congressman Ryan and two other —Baier: Harry Reid controls the Senate. And he has to have a 51 number to get a Senate budget resolution passed through. Why doesn’t he put something close to the president’s budget on the table in the Senate and pass it with 51 votes? He has the votes.Carney: Bret, the president has put forward a budget proposal. He would absolutely be delighted if Republicans were willing to approach our deficit challenges in the same balanced way that every bipartisan commission says we must. And that the Simpson-Bowles commission, which a lot of people like to cite as a high standard which has to be met, included on its membership, Congressman Ryan and two other House Republicans. And guess what? They voted against it.Baier: I understand that, but you understand the gist of my question?Carney: There is no — this is — its not about Senate budgets —Baier: It’s not 60 votes. It’s all Democrats. All Democrats could vote on a budget, they could vote on it tomorrow and they could pass it if they put it on the table. You know that. So why doesn’t the president call Harry Reid and say ‘do that’?Carney: Bret, I know that’s what you want to make this segment about. You know that the only way in modern day Washington to achieve a significant budget compromise is when both parties are willing to work together. That doesn’t mean a unanimous Republican vote in the House or a unanimous Democratic vote in the Senate. It means coming together in a balanced way on a balanced approach. The president and Democratic leaders have demonstrated their willingness to embrace a balanced approach that the American people overwhelmingly support. What the Ryan Republican Budget does is say that we should double down on the same policies that got us into the fiscal mess and economic mess that we’re just recovering from. That’s a fact.Baier: Okay, we’re not making headway on the point but what we’ll come back to it.

Paula Priesse: “April 5th – What our media first told us about George Zimmerman: 1) Said to the dispatcher: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” (NBC) 2) Video shows him uninjured (ABC) 3) Used a racial slur (many sources) 4) Paranoid, called 911 46 times in 14 months (NY Times, NPR & others) and 5) Weighs 240 lbs (NY Times) Now the latest: 1) NBC admits audio editing 2) ABC says video does show possible injury 3) CNN reports enhanced audio places doubt on racial slur 4) Called 911 46 times but over 8 years not 14 months and 5) Weighs 170 lbs not 240 The good news? The media managed to spell Zimmerman’s name correctly over 50% of the time! P”

Rush Limbaugh: “This is what liberals do. Liberals want to take all risk, all danger. That’s why they tell you coffee will kill you. Then one day oat bran will kill you. Then MSG will kill you. You can’t have coconut oil on your popcorn in the movies. They want to take all risk out of life.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Liberals have to have demons, they have to have enemies, and his enemy will float. One month it’s me. The next month it’s the Supreme Court. The next month it’s George Zimmerman. Now it’s gonna be Augusta National for a while. Every day there’s a new enemy or two to take the focus off his failures.”

Rush Limbaugh: “I think there’s panic because the mysticism of 2008’s gone, and it’s been replaced with a record here that’s embarrassing. It’s a record of utter failure, and he can’t run on it, and so he’s got to have enemies.”

Rush Limbaugh: “In all the years that I have been on the radio, it has never occurred to me to do what NBC did with a piece of audio. It never occurred to me just to make a point or just to further my agenda. What good is it if it’s a lie? And had I, can you imagine?”

Rush Limbaugh: “Why is it that every time that there is a political dispute, you people on the left have to assign hate to it and automatically exempt yourselves? You are the haters. You are the people that have this barely controllable rage coursing through your veins, not us.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The media’s like advertising, they have vastly more power over our thinking than we realize. Even the smartest among us, even the most conservative among us are not immune to it.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Obama is the least competent person to ever sit in the White House to lecture anybody about budgets and spending and priorities.”

Rush Limbaugh: “The Tea Party engineered the 2010 midterm elections. The Tea Party engineered this massive landslide victory which equals a massive landslide defeat for the Democrats. The Republican Party didn’t do anything.”

Rush Limbaugh: “What I think most women care about is their children and their future, as well as their present. What kind of a mess is their school? What is the country going to be like when their kids grow up and get out of school? What are their kids going to know when they get out of school? Are they gonna be properly educated? This is what I think women care about.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Obama should have to answer for some things, not Paul Ryan. He should have to answer for what actually is 10.9% unemployment. For the longest period in our history, more people have dropped out of the workforce than at any time in modern history. Obama needs to be made to answer for this.”

Rush Limbaugh: “If the workforce participation rate, the labor force participation rate were the same as it was when Obama took office, the reported unemployment rate today would be 10.9%. And that’s why the workforce has to be tweaked by the Labor Department, to get to 8.2. It’s very simple.”

Rush Limbaugh: “I’ve tried to say the reason the unemployment number can go down when they add people to the unemployment rolls is that the universe of jobs is shrinking. There are fewer jobs against which to compare those out of work, the labor force participation rate.”

The Conservative Press:

Brett Baird, after pointing out that the Senate had not passed a budget for 1070 days and then being accused of presenting statistics that represent gimmickry and stunt by Jay Carney: “What’s gimmickry about not present—passing a budget in the Senate?” And “So, why doesn’t the President call Harry Reid and say, ‘Why don’t we get a budget on the table and vote on it?’”

Disenchanted

Greg

“Ronald Reagan could not get through a Republican primary today.”

Indeed. A provision of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 mandated that capital gains be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. Reagan championed the bill and signed it into law. As a result, from 1988 to 1990, capital gains did get taxed at the same rate as income people actually work for. You paid on your capital gains whatever your total taxable income and tax bracket dictated.

That position alone–one that I strongly agreed with–would likely be enough to guarantee that Reagan could no longer get through a Republican primary.

Reagan also closed a lot of tax loopholes and broadened the entire tax base.

I actually voted for the guy in two presidential elections. The GOP isn’t what it used to be.

FAITH7

“President Obama: “We didn’t simply work that hard in 2008 just to clean up the mess that had been left…And we have been spending the last three years cleaning after some of that mess. And I don’t want to have to do it again.””

If the ‘O’ “thinks” this is a true statement….why do we NOW have 88 Million +++ people Unemployed (10% ++=UE) and, AND we just recently created only 120,000 jobs???????

People headed for Poverty when this should never happen to working Americans.

Exactly what “Mess” has he cleaned up??? The way a lot of Americans see it, we are pretty effing DEEP in a Mess….HIS MESS!!

Vote for Fiscally Responsible People in November…Let’s ‘really’ clean up ‘O”s MESS!!

CharlieGee

What a Glorious Compendium of the truth; wish it didn’t leave me with such a sick feeling inside. See, you don’t try to Argue with the Devil, or Reason with a Liberal, or try to Change a Megalomaniac; just put them behind you.

gary kukis

gary kukis

@Ivan: I have noticed, particularly in the past few months, how liberals are attacking Reagan in any way possible. Well, on the one hand, they will attack him; and then, on the other, they try to distort his record to make him seem like the biggest liberal ever.

johngalt

While you point out several truths about Reagan and taxes, specifically the capital gains tax rate, you leave out some important facts pertaining to all of the tax rates. As well, it is important to note the changes made in succeeding years on both the top income tax rate and the capital gains tax rate.

For instance, the top marginal tax rate on individual income when Reagan left office was 28%, or, the same as the capital gains tax rate. At the time, it was considered by the supply side economists that a capital gains tax rate equal to, or just under, the top individual income tax rate would spur investments that otherwise might not be made, and would allow for that without making the capital gains tax a pseudo- tax shelter for the wealthy.

The top tax rate on individual income rose under Bush 1, while the capital gains tax rate stayed the same. Under Clinton, the top individual tax rate rose sharply, to 39.6%. In 1997, Clinton lowered the capital gains tax rate to 20%, spurring the economic boom known as the “tech boom”. However, the top income tax rate remained the same.

GWB lowered that top rate, down to 35%, but also then lowered the capital gains rate from 20% down to 15%, where we stand today.

Should capital gains tax rates be equal to, or just below, the top marginal income tax rate? That depends on what that top marginal income tax rate is. You have stated previously that you wish for a return, on individual income tax rates, to return back to Clinton era levels. That means a top rate of 39.6%. If the capital gains tax rate were to increase to what you now claim you support, that both capital gains and income are taxed at the same rate, then the capital gains tax rate would also be 39.6%, or, the same as it was during part of the Carter years. Do you honestly want to go back to that? I’d hope not.

Low capital gains tax rates spur economic growth by investment in all manner of ventures, including some that hold high risk. Increasing that rate would only hurt investment, while adding little to nothing to the federal revenues(I say little to nothing when compared to the deficits Obama has saddled the country with). However, increasing those rates, with the corresponding drop in income tax rates, allows the small to midsize business owners more income to reinvest in their own businesses, and they don’t have to rely as much on the venture capital, or taking their company public, in order to grow them.

Greg

Ronald Reagan wouldn’t recognize what the GOP has recently become. He certainly wouldn’t approve of their inflexibility, of their unwillingness to compromise, and of their increasing dishonesty and lack of civility. They’re probably lucky that he isn’t still around to comment.

Nan G

President Obama, on what will happen if the Ryan budget is passed: “We wouldn’t have the capacity to enforce the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food that we eat. Cuts to the FAA would likely result in more flight cancellations, delays and the complete elimination of air traffic control services in parts of the country. Over time, our weather forecasts would become less accurate because we wouldn’t be able to afford to launch new satellites and that means governors and mayors would have to wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a hurricane. That’s just a partial sampling of the consequences of this budget.”Obama is such a liar!
TRUTH:
President Obama, on what will happen if the Ryan budget is passed: “I would veto it.”

Nan G

President Obama: “When people say we should get rid of Planned Parenthood, they’re not just talking about restricting a woman’s ability to make her health decisions. They’re talking about denying, as a practical matter, the preventive care, like mammograms, that millions of women rely on.”
Another STRAW MAN.

Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms; it writes referrals for the patient to have them done elsewhere.

Good catch, but people are NOT saying to ”get rid of Planned Parenthood.”
People are saying to quit government subsidies of Planned Parenthood.
At the top year of tax money into Planned Parenthood coffers they only got 1/3rd of their budget from taxpayers.
All the rest comes from private donors.
Let them who want it step up and support it.

johngalt

Reinventing history, Greg? Or just accusing the GOP of what the Democrats do everyday?

Inflexibility? Remind me which party was it that passed Obamacare without support, input, and compromise, with the other side. Remind me which party was it that passed the Stimulus bill in 2009 with virtually no input, and no compromise, with the other side.

Increasing dishonesty? That’s a laugher and a half, considering the lies and half-truths and outright obfuscation from the Democratic party on every issue.

Lack of civility? On what, may I ask? Remind me again which side, left or right, produced an article on “hate f***s”? Or accused TEA party members of being terrorists? Or attacks Sarah Palin constantly with all manner of uncivil comments about her, her son Trig, her daughter, and other family members? Or accuses every conservative under the sun of being racist? Or commented on Cheney’s recent surgery in such abominable manner? Or likened Bush to Hitler, a chimp, and the devil? Or issued death threats to Wisconsin lawmakers, including WI senators and the governor? Or stated they will “take them out”, when speaking about conservatives(Trumka)? Or refer to black conservatives as “Uncle Tom ” or “Aunt Jemima”? Or who accuse sitting congressmen of desiring to push grandma off of a cliff? Or who call conservative women c***s, bitches, and other abusive names? Etc., etc., etc. The list goes on and on and on.

johngalt

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: “There is no economic or financial case for using the fear of future deficits to cut as deeply into core functions of the government, to weaken the safety net or fundamentally alter Medicare benefits as do the Republican proposals.” Let’s just keep spending money.

Greg

johngalt

Yes, Greg, “as deeply” is an important qualifier. And Geithner is lying when he insinuates that proposals put forth by the Republicans are all that deep. The fact is, none of the proposals seeks to actually cut any program’s funding, only the level of increase for them.

That you even give consideration to Geithner’s words shows the level of intellectual dishonesty you are willing to engage in, in your support of the liberal/progressive ideology.

And Greece, while not having the magnitude of GDP that the US has, is an excellent example of what happens when your debt/GDP ratio gets to large. And that is the point, Greg. Obama, and the liberal/progressives, see nothing wrong with continuing to add to the debt, far outpacing the level of GDP growth. Eventually, we will get there. By then, any “austerity” measures to curb, or put off, the doom awaiting us will be met with the same protestations and riots that Greece is experiencing. Only a naive fool would seek to differentiate what is happening to Greece, and the path we are on.

Ben

ilovebeeswarzone

Ben
hi, thank you for linking to this very good explanation,
yes they come out of their shell suddenly, as if they where lodging into a live grenade shell,
that’s their weapon, the explosion you never expected coming out of nowhere,
and for no legit reason, they leave the other trying to understand the lunatic,
you wonder how sick mind he is, you think, well I should let that sicko alone
by not answering and silently, you tip toe bacward so to not be attack by the human turned beast,
yes he won, and he gain the fear tactic he knows it perfectly, he learned it very young on his first tantrum
which had freak up his parents who di the same thing as the person, which is retreat, and pretend it never happen, until the next and the next, and later joining the liberals democrats the socialists the communist marxist unions, all of them because they play the people as ignorant ,
and the normal people don’t play that game because they are tolerant and superior to them,
the normal people don’t need games to achieve, they just use their brain.
while the liberals democrats are constantly piss of and want money to spend erratic brainless.
is that who some want to vote for? sure
if one is one of them.
OBAMA STARTED HIS PRESIDENCY YELLING ALL OVER THE STAGES. HE NOW IS ENDING IT YELLING LOUDER ALL OVER THE PLACE, HE KNOW HE IS A GONER, HE HAS NO WAY BACK,
bye